


For Us Both to Eat Well

by cagethesongbird



Series: eat your veggies [1]
Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: (sort of), Age Play, Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Caregiver Tyrell Wellick, Caretaking, Diapers, Domestic Fluff, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Hospitals, Little Elliot, M/M, Medical Jargon, Non-Sexual Age Play, Stuffed Toys, Thumb-sucking, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:41:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23886121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cagethesongbird/pseuds/cagethesongbird
Summary: Once upon a time, Elliot was a morphine addict. He's been clean for months, and leads a very different life, but it's still biting him in the ass.Elliot gets diagnosed with disordered eating as a result of a narcotic dependency, and Tyrell is left with even more of a picky toddler than he had before. He doesn't mind, though.
Relationships: Elliot Alderson & Tyrell Wellick, Elliot Alderson/Tyrell Wellick
Series: eat your veggies [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1721776
Comments: 7
Kudos: 53





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hope ur all well! i've had quite a bit of writing time due to quarantine, so... here we are :D  
> title somewhat stolen from "our beautiful life when it's filled with shrieks" by christopher citro. 'i love you, i want us both to eat well'.
> 
> enjoy <3

“Mr. Alderson.” The doctor’s voice is stern, but not unkind, like the mother of an unruly teenager’s might be. She takes a glance at the odd couple – Elliot, clearly uncomfortable, shrunk in on himself. And Tyrell, a solid, well dressed anchor keeping him from blowing away with the next breeze. She sits.

She taps her short nails against the charts clamped to her clipboard, features steeled to shoot down any excuse Elliot might fish out. “Do you realize you are thirty-five pounds underweight?”

Elliot bristles at being addressed, the paper-thin hospital gown swallowing him around the neck and shoulders. He squeezes Tyrell’s fingers so hard that they blanch painfully, but Tyrell doesn’t dare let go. It took enough to get him here, and Tyrell doesn’t want to risk him taking flight in the middle of the doctor’s explanation.

“No,” Elliot says slowly, lying through his teeth. He may not have known the number, but he knew he was pounds and pounds away from a healthy weight. “I didn’t know.”

His eyes are even larger than usual, suspicious green saucers scanning the doctor’s pinkened, homely face. Seeing right through her. Tyrell wonders if Elliot had hacked her, and decides the answer is probably. It wasn’t so much obsession as much as precaution, anymore. Tyrell can’t really blame him.

Elliot does not like doctors. Elliot does not like hospitals. Elliot does not like any medication he doesn’t directly control. He doesn’t like the variables – he could get a bad doctor, or they could prescribe the wrong medication, or he could contract something just from hanging around the waiting room. The margin for error boggles his mind.

For a long time, he only ended up in the hospital when couldn’t physically stop the EMTs from taking him there. He’d learned the basics of first aid, and mostly, that kept him out of those awful, sterile-white rooms.

Never mind the fact that most hospitals were for-profit, as money hungry as the any other business out there. Elliot had made his peace with the ways of the world. Even the people who were supposed to be selfless had a hand in their pocket.

“And you think that’s remotely acceptable?” the doctor prods. “I’ve seen your medical records, Mr. Alderson. You should have been in to see me the moment you started losing weight. Wasting away happens to so many addicts –“

Now it’s Tyrell’s turn to bristle. “Excuse me, doctor, but do you really want to be talking to a paying patient that way?” he asks sharply.

Tyrell narrows his eyes at this woman in silent competition, at her blue scrubs and straight gray hair. To his shock, she squints right back. Who the hell does she think she is?

Elliot tugs on Tyrell’s hand. He’s sucked in his cheeks so hard the outline of bone is hard and visible. His eyes, though dry, are firmly fixated on the floor.

“’Rell,” he says. “It’s okay. Let her finish.”

‘ _Rell._ The nickname Elliot only used when he was Little, or close enough to it. Tyrell sucks at his teeth, and, while still giving the doctor his best red-hot glare, holds his tongue. Not for her. He didn’t remotely care if he hurt the woman’s feelings.

He was still ruthless that way – no stranger was going to matter more than him, or the people he cared about. But because Elliot was so close to being upset, and so close to slipping, he didn’t want to agitate him further.

“As I was saying,” the doctor continues, flipping a few pages deep into her notes. Oh, Tyrell _loathes_ her, loathes everything about her. His jaw twitches.

“I think I can adequately diagnose you, Mr. Alderson, and it’s not allergies, or anything you’ve checked here. It’s very unlikely for you to have been allergic to all these different meals, on all these different occasions.”

The vomiting had begun happening any time Elliot ate anything heartier than a bowl of cereal. For weeks, he’d end an evening meal bowing by the porcelain throne, emptying the contents of his stomach. It reminded him of detoxing in the worst way, only –

“You’ve been clean for five months,” the doctor says. “That’s an achievement, so don’t get me wrong when I say it’s not been long. Morphine is a powerful narcotic, as I’m sure you know.” Her voice drops low, sympathetic, for the first time since they’d met her. “Its effects on the body do not stop when usage stops.”

“I’m sorry, you’re saying the morphine caused this?” Tyrell asks, shrill and incredulous. “He’s clean!”

“Mr. Wellick, if I remember correctly, you’re not the patient here,” the doctor says, voice steely again. “Do I need to ask you to step outside?”

Elliot suddenly looks so panicked, and his grip on Tyrell’s fingers goes so tight, Tyrell is surprised neither one of them cries out.

“My apologies, doctor,” Tyrell says, in a tone that is pretty far from apologetic. He flashes her his brightest, whitest, most corporate smile, and sits back in his chair. He pets Elliot’s fingers with the fleshy pad of his thumb.

“Yes, I do believe the morphine has caused this,” she says. “How long were you using?”

“Years,” Elliot says, not meeting anyone’s eyes, though both gazes fall on him. He doesn’t volunteer anything else.

“That kind of mileage doesn’t reverse easily,” the doctor continues, unperturbed.

“Put simply, your appetite is suppressed,” she says. “There’s an entire discussion we could have about the effects of narcotics on the digestive system, but basically, your body isn’t recognizing that it needs food. The switch has been turned off and isn’t sure how to come back on again.”

“So, when you’re trying to feed yourself, your body has learned to reject instead of accept. I’m assuming the food you’re eating now is of higher quality, and that factors as well. The body does not understand like the mind does. It learns one thing and wants to stick with it.”

The doctor leans back, spiel apparently finished. Elliot’s face is pale, and he has one hand gripping at the collar of his flimsy hospital gown. If Tyrell were a gambling man, he would certainly wager that the second they were alone, the fingers of that hand were going to find their way to Elliot’s mouth.

“What do we do?” Tyrell asks, settling in with the hard determination in which he’s always done things.

The doctor leaves them with a hefty stack of papers and pamphlets about healthy eating and simple diets, and a long-winded conversation about starting slowly, about help lines, about ‘every day is a new day’. She also leaves them with her extension number, which Tyrell isn’t exactly expecting from the frigid bitch.

He tucks it neatly in his pocket. “Have you ever seen such unprofessionalism? I mean, I know this hospital isn’t the greatest, but you expect some kind of –“

Tyrell’s train of thought comes to a screeching halt. Elliot is crying quietly, having not burst into tears, but having them slip out like he just couldn’t hold them back anymore.

“Oh, baby,” Tyrell whispers. He’s comfortable with Elliot needing to cry – it happened, whether he was little or not. But it’s never hurt his heart any less. He crosses over to Elliot and bundles him into a hug. He’s very aware how small Elliot seems in his arms, more aware than he’s ever been.

Elliot cries harder, and Tyrell rocks him, muttering a swirling mix of English-Swedish that he couldn’t translate if he tried. He runs a hand across Elliot’s back. It’s painfully obvious that, if he wanted, he could count all the notches in Elliot’s spine.

He mentally kicks himself, and hard – they sleep in the same damned bed at night! How could he not have noticed Elliot wasting away?

Because, though Tyrell didn’t know it, Elliot had always been slippery about his health. He had faked his weight in high school with rocks stuffed in heavy sweatshirt pockets, had hacked his hospital records more times than he could count. He knew how to let Tyrell touch him when he was full and heavy-seeming, and how to duck out of sight when he was frail. It wasn’t his fault. He was afraid, and when he became afraid, hiding was just second nature.

“Oh, honey, just cry it out,” Tyrell soothes, fully prepared to lay into anyone who might try to kick them out before they were ready. He didn’t care how much of a dick he was anymore. Especially not when it came to Elliot.

Elliot does cry it out, all over Tyrell’s sweater. Tyrell, who doesn’t so much as blink, well beyond caring about something he can simply wash later. He produces a pocket-sized swatch of tissues and sops up Elliot’s face. It takes a minute to ground him, but he gets Elliot off of the exam table, all socked feet and swimming in his paper gown.

“Cold,” Elliot murmurs, fidgeting, one finger already secured in his mouth. He looks so… so _little,_ like he could drop through a crack in the floor, disappear to live amongst the dust bunnies.

Tyrell feels his brow pinching as he frowns. How did he let this happen? He knew how Elliot tended to eat, and that was not at all. He should have been forcing him, or something…

“I know,” Tyrell says, unfolding Elliot’s street clothes. _Don’t dwell,_ he tells himself. _Look forward, not back._ It was unlikely Elliot would have even accepted the help, before.

He coaxes Elliot back into his regular clothing, one limb at a time. Elliot goes slack and pliant, letting Tyrell gently wrangle him. Tyrell brushes Elliot’s hair back from his forehead, aware the look on his face is dopey-soft, fond.

Predictably, he also has to coax Elliot’s fingers out of his mouth, with them being in public and all. Sure, the hospital’s probably seen weirder, being smack dab in the middle of the Lower East Side. Still, Elliot wouldn’t appreciate being seen like that once he’s back to caring.

Elliot obliges, aware they’re not at home. He sniffles and pulls his hood up, looking all of three years old.

“’M sick,” he mumbles, rubbing his knuckles across his lips.

“And the doctor gave us all this to help you get better,” Tyrell says, sensing Elliot is teetering into yet another apology for something he can’t control. Old habits die hard, but Tyrell is still very much hoping to break that one. “Now, here – use some hand sanitizer before we go.”

Tyrell tucks the stack of medical pamphlets under his arm and takes Elliot’s now-clean hand. They manage to sign out with a nurse and schedule a three-month check-up, for which Tyrell does most of the talking. The nurse acts like that’s nothing out of the ordinary, and Tyrell is grateful. At least the hospital employs _some_ well-mannered staff.

“Feel better!” the nurse chirps, and Elliot flashes her a weak smile.

He leans into Tyrell, feeling the sterile hospital chill had seeped right into his bones. He craves the warmth of their apartment, and maybe even their bed, even though it’s only late afternoon.

“Okay?” Tyrell asks him softly. Elliot shakes his head – why lie? He feels like garbage. Just visiting the doctor has taken it out of him completely, a rude reminder in why he used to avoid them in the first place.

“I’m sorry, baby. We’re going home now,” Tyrell tells him. Elliot knows that, but it still feels good to be reminded. _Home._ For the first time in his life, it’s somewhere he wants to be.

Tyrell squeezes his hand. “You were very brave,” he says. “I know how much you hate the doctor. You did very well, and I’m proud of you.”

Elliot certainly doesn’t _feel_ brave; after all, didn’t he dissolve into tears as soon as the doctor had gone? But he nods shortly. The words are nice, and if he does it enough, maybe one day he’ll learn to accept praise.

They step onto the chilly street. Even at four in the afternoon, New York is bustling, the boulevard writhing with people. Elliot shrinks back into Tyrell’s side, cursing the city that never sleeps. It’s easy enough to go unnoticed when he’s alone, just another face in the crowd, but Tyrell commands a certain kind of attention wherever he goes. Elliot wouldn’t say he _hates_ it, because he gets to be with Tyrell, but it isn’t his favorite.

“ _Liten skugga,”_ Tyrell says, using the hand not linked with Elliot’s to hail a cab. “My little shadow.”

The apartment is comfortably warm, and Tyrell peels out of his sweater, tosses it into their dinky laundry room. Elliot’s not complaining. He hadn’t had laundry that wasn’t a few blocks down since he was a kid. It’s certainly helped, since… all this. Not having to take piss-soaked sheets out in the middle of the night was a blessing.

Elliot’s just begun to make a nest for himself on the couch, one shoe still hanging off his foot, when Tyrell peeks back in at him. His new shirt is plain, one of the least designer things you could own. It could even be one of Elliot’s, one of the ones that hangs a little too big on him. To Elliot, it’s still funny to see Tyrell dressed so casually. He thinks it might always be funny.

You wouldn’t know it by his swagger, but Tyrell had never actually secured the CTO position. Evil Corp didn’t even exist anymore, their employees scattered to the four winds. The major tech companies, now left without their biggest competitor, had no problem scooping them up. Elliot isn't exactly sure Tyrell did now, other than oversee young engineers – but the hours were flexible, and the pay was good, so he didn’t worry about it.

Tyrell comes over, smelling like the sweet, chemically detergent of fresh clothes, like the sharp acidity of his long-hold hair gel, and something woodsy, masculine. He kneels, like a goddamned fairy-tale prince, and nudges Elliot’s shoe the rest of the way off. It meets its twin with a thunk on the hardwood.

He pulls at one of Elliot’s toes, and Elliot squeaks, yanks his leg away. Tyrell’s grinning his big grin, his _genuine_ grin, and Elliot sticks his tongue out at him. It’s juvenile, he’s aware, but – that’s okay. He’s allowed to be.

Tyrell’s still squatting, one warm hand on Elliot’s knee. His beaming, Elliot thinks, could outshine the sun. “Do you need a change, too?”

Elliot purses his lips. He was feeling pretty little in the doctor’s office, but now he could go either way. But if Tyrell was offering, and he clearly was – well.

“Yeah,” he says. He bows his head, and his shaggy curls fall into his eyes. He desperately needs a haircut but couldn’t be bothered to go find his clippers. Maybe he’ll let it go, until he point blank can’t stand it anymore. That would be an experiment. He’d cropped his hair in early high school and hadn’t changed it much since.

“Can walk,” he mutters, shuffling past Tyrell. Sometimes, his independent streak still came through. He knows he’ll cave and want to be picked up, but not just yet.

Flipper pokes her little head up when they enter their room, from the quality, memory-foam doggy bed Tyrell still makes fun of Elliot for buying. Her tail thumps mildly at them, and her ears twitch with interest, though she doesn’t bother to get up. For everything she is, the dark little terrier is not going to dissuade any burglars.

“Hey, Flip,” Elliot whispers, scratching her under the chin. She’s getting older, having not been a spring chicken when Elliot saved her, and in the back of his mind Elliot worries that her life is drawing to a close. The vet said she was healthy enough, but – he worries anyway. She licks his hand, unconcerned with her own mortality.

“Do you want Carebears, or Nemo?” Tyrell is asking him to decide between shirts, and he finds himself requesting the fish. He always liked Nemo, and was pretty thrilled to hear they did Dory, too. He didn’t even think he could still get excited for such things, but he was practically bouncing up and down when Tyrell bought him the DVD.

“How did I guess?” Tyrell teases. He holds out his arms and Elliot gives, letting himself be picked up and deposited on the bed.

He rolls onto his back and gazes at the ceiling, at the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck up there. He’d had similar ones years and years ago, and had found himself really wanting them again. They were all of three dollars, but Elliot had still struggled to ask, to put them in the cart.

It was strange, the things he found himself wanting. All the good pieces of his childhood strung together with all the things he never had.

Tyrell was only glad he had started to want anything at all. Living like Elliot did, being denied (or denying himself) simple pleasures, had seemingly turned off the part of the brain that _wants._ Tyrell made explicitly sure Elliot knew he could ask for things – or even just buy them if he wanted. Still, he had trouble.

He’d practically been on his own since he was eighteen, and completely alone for the few years before Darlene could move out. He was little more than a wiry kid who was good with computers, using that knowledge to keep himself from drowning. Now that he’s allowed to be needy again, it’s hard and strange. He tries, because he does _want,_ but the niggling thought that Tyrell might abandon him keeps him from wanting too hard.

Even though he knows it won’t happen. They’re stuck like glue, for better or worse.

He shivers as Tyrell eases him out of his hoodie, and then his shirt. He had once asked Tyrell what exactly he got out of helping with something as mundane as dressing him. Tyrell had laughed good-naturedly and said something about job satisfaction.

Elliot thinks about asking again – his anxiety still liked to play tricks on him – but watching as Tyrell neatly puts away the cigarettes and lighter from his pockets, he decides he’s not big enough for those kinds of questions.

The Nemo shirt is soft and tag-less, like it had been manufactured for a real toddler. It’s bright orange, printed with an image of Nemo waving with his lucky fin. It’s about the farthest you can get from Elliot’s dark, nondescript big boy clothes – and he’ll admit, he kind of loves it.

Next is the diaper. In the beginning, Elliot would have sworn he hated this part, but now… it just came with the territory. He knew he was too little to avoid it – and sometimes, even needed it when he was big.

Tyrell nudges Elliot’s legs apart and slides the diaper under him, movements practiced and sure. The bulk is heavy and familiar, and so, so safe. Elliot watches Tyrell’s face as he fastens the tapes, slightly pinched in concentration, but mostly so… serene. Elliot tries to remember that look when he feels like a burden.

Tyrell finishes by helping him into elastic pants, and fuzzy socks printed with yellow ducks. Most of what he wears while little is safe to fall asleep in.

“Better?” Tyrell asks, question rhetorical. The tiny smile on Elliot’s face, the sudden clearing of his usually-stormy face, says it all.

Elliot hums around his fingers, and – hey, when did those get in there? Tyrell walks away for moment, which Elliot doesn’t like at all, but he’s back in just a second, offering Elliot a binky.

Elliot pops his mouth open to accept, and Tyrell kisses him on both cheeks. He stands back up, holding out a hand.

“Let’s go find something to eat, yeah?” he says, thinking of a recipe he’d seen in one of the doctor’s pamphlets.

Elliot makes an unhappy noise and holds out his arms. _Up._

“I thought you could walk?”

Elliot frowns, reaching harder, making grabby hands. Tyrell shakes his head but sets Elliot on his hip anyway. “You’re so predictable,” he says.

In response, Elliot buries his face in Tyrell’s neck. At the moment, he didn’t give a rat’s ass about _predictable._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! enjoy!
> 
> edit: hey, happy 5/9 everybody. Didn't even realize that's when I posted this lmao

Elliot on his hip, Tyrell walks into the kitchen. Sometimes it strikes him how different life is, now. When they had met at AllSafe, he surely would have never imagined holding that cagey cybersecurity tech like this. Well, maybe he did – but not quite as literally.

He certainly never would have imagined feeling so protective, so full of love, just from having Elliot’s bony arms thrown around his neck, angular face buried in the crook of his neck. But he does. And he wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Late afternoon sunshine casts the kitchen in a warm, yellow glow. Light falls across their mismatched sitting chairs, the heavy oak table they eat at. In the far corner, Flipper’s metal bowls reflect the sunlight, throwing lazy beams across the floor.

Elliot shifts, and gazes up at Tyrell with his big green eyes. Everything about him is lighter, less burdened. Even the circles beneath his eyes have seemingly faded away. He smiles around his pacifier, a giggly toddler grin, and if Tyrell’s cheeks hurt from how hard he smiles back, no one would blame him.

He bounces Elliot in his arms. “What are you hungry for, hm?”

Of course, Elliot isn’t hungry for anything. When he was big, Tyrell didn’t push him about food, besides a gentle reminder here or there. He could go days without realizing he was hungry, and then go on to inhale every edible object he could find. It was habit – he wasn’t used to a life that handed itself to three square meals a day.

Elliot hums, the rubber teat in his mouth vibrating. He wasn’t the best at making decisions. Something about deciding between life and death had turned him off from the whole idea.

“That’s not much of an answer, my love,” Tyrell tells him. “I’m going to need both my hands while I figure it out. I think there’s some toys in the living room waiting for you.”

Elliot makes an unhappy little noise. He knows he’s being clingy, but the thought is eclipsed by his need to be close to Tyrell. He grips the fabric of Tyrell’s shirt, pressing his forehead tight against Tyrell’s chest.

“I know, you’d rather be held all the time,” Tyrell says fondly. “But I can’t cook like this. I’ll be right here if you need me, my love, I promise.”

Tyrell brings him into the living room, sets him on the soft braided carpet in front of the couch. Elliot doesn’t fight. He can still hear Tyrell, and go find him if he really needs, and that’s enough.

His toys are, in fact, waiting for him. The big wicker basket of his things has been set conveniently nearby, and he grabs for it, sending it tumbling over and spilling its contents in front of him. Dolls and cars and trucks and shapes, soft things to chew on and hug. He’s spoiled rotten, and it’s _awesome._

His beloved stuffed cat, Crescent, is there too. Her dark eyes sparkle at him, and he holds her tight, rubbing one of her silky ears across his cheek. As a kid, he’d never much bothered with stuffed animals, but there was something special about this cat. She was magic.

Bowls and things clatter distantly as Tyrell starts cooking. He’s hooked up his phone to the speakers in the living room, and soft opera begins to fill the apartment. Elliot works his binky in his mouth, Crescent’s ear still pressed to his face, and closes his eyes.

“Hey, _Törnrosa,”_ Tyrell’s warm voice brings Elliot back around. His eyelids flutter open. His binky is, remarkably, still slotted in his mouth. Flipper had joined him sometime during his nap, the warm scruff of her curled up by his ankles. She, too, glances up at Tyrell, obviously unhappy to be disturbed.

“Sorry to wake you,” Tyrell says softly, his words ghosting over Elliot’s still-sleepy mind. He blinks lazily, the world around him soft and far away. The opera music had been turned down real low, and the buzz in his ears is pleasant. “But it’s time to eat.”

_Eat._ Elliot doesn’t know how to feel about that, exactly, so he whines quietly. Falling asleep like he had, surrounded by his toys, has managed to make him feel very, very small. Tyrell scoops him up without him having to ask, sensing this. Elliot sniffles.

“You dropped hard, huh?” Tyrell murmurs, rubbing Elliot’s back. He’s a little overwarm from the kitchen, and smells like cooking oil. Elliot goes ragdoll-slack against him.

Tyrell hums agreeably, mostly to himself. “I’ve got a very little boy tonight.”

Flipper trots behind them, her nails click-clacking against the wood floor. She nudges her wet nose against the back of Tyrell’s leg, and he scoots the little dog closer to her food and water.

“You’ve been fed,” he tells her sternly.

“Puppy,” Elliot mutters, head resting comfortably on Tyrell’s shoulder. His eyes nearly slide close again.

“Yeah, silly puppy thinks she needs more food,” Tyrell says. Flipper gives him an offended look and waddles away.

“Mm,” Elliot agrees.

Tyrell sets him in his seat, the one he usually favored. If he were feeling older, he might have thought about how Tyrell just seemed to pick up on things – Elliot’s likes and dislikes were often catered to before he had a chance to put in an opinion. But for now, he just feels warm contentment in his tummy. He hums around his pacifier.

“Can I have that?” Tyrell asks, tapping on the shield of Elliot’s binky. Elliot’s hands fly up around his mouth, covering the soother protectively. He shakes his head. _Mine._

“Not forever,” Tyrell clarifies, amused. “Just while you eat.”

Oh, well. That made more sense. With a cautious look, Elliot coughs up the binky. He offers it to Tyrell with clumsy toddler hands, and, slobbery teat and all, Tyrell closes his fingers around it.

“Have back?” Elliot asks, looking forlornly after the soother. It wasn’t even the only one he owned, but it was the one he wanted, and the one being taken from him.

“Of course, you’ll get it back,” Tyrell says gently. “Thank you for giving it to me. You’re such a good boy.”

Elliot blushes, ducking his head a bit, despite how deeply little he is. Tyrell smooths back Elliot’s hair to press a kiss to his forehead, before turning to putter around the kitchen some more. When he returns, he’s holding two steaming plates in one hand, and somehow balancing a sippy cup atop his own glass in the other.

Maybe Crescent wasn’t the only one who was magic.

Tyrell settles into the chair besides him, and Elliot takes his sippy cup, pulling greedily from the spout. He’s pleased to find it to be milk. Tyrell busies himself cutting up Elliot’s food, and Elliot watches him, as he often did. He would never cease to get a kick out of watching people, even if the people in question happened to be his boyfriend and caregiver. Even if he saw said people every day.

“Mm,” Elliot mutters, butting his head against Tyrell’s upper arm. “Loves you.”

Tyrell's chest aches with a rush of affection. When he was big, Elliot hardly ever initiated the ‘I love yous’. They had even fought about it a few times. Hearing it said so casually made something hot and emotional well up in Tyrell’s chest.

“I love you, too,” he says, and plants a big kiss on Elliot’s cheek, just because he can. “I love you so much.”

He slides Elliot’s plate squarely in front of him, not distracted from the task at hand. “Eat now, _älskling._ ”

Elliot looks down at his puppy dog-shaped plastic plate. It’s chicken and pasta, neatly cut up and separated for him, though that can’t possibly be what it’s called. Knowing Tyrell, it’s some French cookbook-type dish, something a high-end restaurant would overcharge for. It looks _good,_ and Elliot finds himself with an appetite, for once.

Tyrell could cook. Though, to Elliot, anyone who didn’t burn water was more of a cook than him. It was one of those things you never really think about – who can cook and who can’t. But whenever they didn’t go out, Tyrell was in the kitchen, working through a complex recipe without breaking a sweat.

Elliot goes for his utensils, the ones with grippy purple handles. But grippy or no, he can’t seem to hold them right. It feels all wrong and uncomfortable in his hand, so he tries the other, but that one only stands to not work at all.

He glances up at Tyrell, who is busy with his own meal, and feels truly baffled by how quickly he’s gotten himself into a situation. How does he even begin to explain that his hands, clumsy and awkward, aren’t working right? Words seem so huge and looming, so scary. He drops his fork with a plastic clatter and begins to cry.

“What’s wrong?” Tyrell asks, mildly alarmed. Everything was fine not twenty seconds ago.

Elliot hunches over, shoulders up around his ears, even though Tyrell’s voice is nothing but gentle. He’s so afraid of getting yelled at, he makes a distressed hiccupping sound.

“Sorry, sorry,” Elliot sobs, protectively angling his body away from Tyrell. “Sorry sorry sorry.”

It injures his feelings a bit, but Tyrell knows it's not him Elliot is afraid of. It’s the power he has, the power to yell and scream and hit when Elliot had done… nothing. Elliot had done nothing, and he’s still worked up like this. Tyrell has to bite back the bitter anger that creeps in behind his teeth – Elliot surely doesn’t need any anger right now.

“Oh, honey, it’s okay,” Tyrell says, keeping his voice low. He goes to lift Elliot up, but draws his hands back at the last second. Maybe now was not the time for quick actions. “Can I hold you, my love?”

Elliot lifts up his red, wet face. What a long day this must be for him, between this and the doctor visit. He pauses for a minute, as if to consider the offer, before flinging himself at Tyrell. Tyrell makes a surprised noise, but hoists Elliot up, settling him into his lap and supporting him with a solid arm slotted behind his back.

“Why the tears?” Tyrell asks Elliot, who gestures vaguely to the utensils. He’s still sniffly, eyes damp, but he’s okay. Nothing Tyrell can’t fix.

“Your silverware?” Tyrell asks, genuinely puzzled at what could be wrong with it. “You want new ones?”

Elliot shakes his head. Tyrell rocks Elliot in an easy rhythm, worrying his lip. If he didn’t act soon, chances were Elliot would give up and not bother eating at all. He thinks of the pamphlets sitting on the table in their bedroom, warning him of what could happen if Elliot lost much more weight. He frowns.

Then a lightbulb goes off. “Do you want me to feed you?”

Elliot blinks. He hadn’t even considered it, and there was Tyrell, two steps ahead. And, yes, he does want that. Very much.

“Umm,” he says finally. “Yeah. You do.”

“Okay,” Tyrell says. They’d never done it before, but he figures it’s just what it says on the tin. Feed his baby. Easy, right?

Wrong. Elliot ends up with more food on his face than in his belly, even as Tyrell tries to neatly angle the forkfuls up to his mouth. There’s a little mountain of pasta at their feet, and Tyrell starts taking from his own plate when Elliot’s dwindles down to the scraps. The good news is that Elliot eats with more gusto than Tyrell had seen in a while, and whines when Tyrell finally sets the fork down.

“You’ll get a stomachache if you eat much more,” Tyrell tells him, cleaning up Elliot’s face with a napkin. Elliot squirms.

“Be still,” Tyrell says gently, holding Elliot’s chin in his other hand. Flipper comes by, click-clacking up to them, and vacuums up the fallen pasta before Tyrell has a chance to shoo her away. He sighs.

“Puppy,” Elliot says helpfully.

“Yeah, she’s gonna make herself sick, too,” Tyrell says, turning to watch the dog saunter over to her water bowl, victorious. “You two will be the death of me.”

Elliot squirms again, and Tyrell catches the hint. “I’d wager you need a change by now, huh?”

“Yes, um,” Elliot says, nibbling on his thumb for lack of a pacifier. “Wet.”

“Let’s take care of that right now,” Tyrell says, managing to get to his feet while still holding Elliot. He mentally pats himself on the back for that one. “Then we can see where that binky ran off to, yeah?”

They’re halfway through the diaper change when Elliot scrambles to sit up and lean over, moving with all the speed of a bat out of hell. Without pretense, he vomits over the side of the bed. It’s so sudden and unexpected that Tyrell stands there for a few beats, holding the soiled diaper in his frozen hand. He looks down at Elliot, dumbfounded, and Elliot looks back, eyes taking up most of his sullen face. Tyrell thinks he looks like a baby owl, but the thought is buried under his panic.

He drops the diaper and scoops Elliot, who is nude as the day he was born, into his arms. He carts them off to the bathroom, managing to squeeze inside without setting Elliot down. They don’t have a bathtub, but Tyrell starts the shower, figuring the heat, at least, will do Elliot some good. And feeling clean wouldn’t hurt, either.

Elliot isn’t crying, which is strange. He just holds on while Tyrell shifts him to the other arm, limply pats Tyrell’s cheek to get his attention.

“Ick,” he says sadly. He’s sweating above his brow, his face pale and sickly.

“I know it, honey,” Tyrell says. He should have made Elliot stop eating sooner, or knocked on wood, or _something._ Even though he knows that line of thinking is useless, he can’t help the what ifs.

Tyrell sits Elliot on the shower floor, setting himself on the edge of the closed toilet. Elliot leans over the drain and gags a few times, but the majority had seemingly ended up on their bedroom floor. Tyrell thinks of Flipper, and prays she stays out until he can clean up.

Tyrell runs a washcloth over Elliot’s face. He may as well have just gotten in, too, with how the open shower curtain is getting him all wet. He takes a few breaths, trying to ground himself. This was just an off day. They’d get through it, like they’d gotten through all the ones before it.

He thinks of the extension number sandwiched in with the rest of the medical papers. They’d get through it, and once they did, he’d have to make a call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Törnrosa - Sleeping Beauty  
> älskling - darling, sweetheart


End file.
